Comedian Kain Carter has nearly 90,000 followers on Twitter, but most of his online presence comes via his YouTube page, where he’s racked up over 95 million views…by allegedly stealing bits from the late, great Patrice O’Neal. And by allegedly, I mean: Carter done f*cked up royally. According to the Root:

People on Twitter caught wind of Carter’s fraud via this YouTube video making the rounds on social media. (Note: Contains explicit language.) The video contains audio and video clips of Patrice O’Neal’s work played immediately before some of Carter’s videos, which often contain O’Neal’s routines word for word. (Via)

Here’s the video.

Using the sideways handheld camera he’s so fond of (the scenes filmed in bathrooms are a personal favorite and a perfect metaphor), Carter explained that he wasn’t stealing from O’Neal; he was acting “as a vessel that [Patrice] speaks through,” to “keep the material alive.” O’Neal’s partner, Vondecarlo Brown, didn’t see it that way, and she’s been retweeting comments such as, “To anyone stealing Patrice’s material to ‘honor him'; If you want to honor Patrice, direct people to his CDs and DVDs so his family gets $.” The most damning confession, however, is that Carter had never heard of O’Neal until two weeks before he died, which is a bit like a rookie NFL quarterback not knowing who Peyton Manning is. That’s as wrong as Carter going by HotDamnIRock on Twitter.

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Carter explained that he wasn’t stealing from O’Neal; he was acting “as a vessel that [Patrice] speaks through,” to “keep the material alive.”

“Y’see, I’m keeping the material alive and not mentioning where I got the material AT ALL because that would take away from the focus of the material! Plus I never heard of the guy until 2 wees before he died, so it’s totally cool that I still keep the material up on my website!”

Here’s what should happen. He should go on Opie & Anthony and explain his case, then all of Patrices friends (Jim Norton, Rich Vos, Bob Kelly, Bill Burr, Colin Quinn etc.) bash his brains out, live on air.

I was thinking the same thing. He doesn’t have the conviction behind the words or the intelligence to actually discuss and elaborate it. Patrice may have said a TON of non-PC and misogynistic stuff, but he could (and would) debate all of those points in a way that made sense even when you disagreed with him.

Patrice is RARE and RAW. Patrice didn’t just have jokes, He had a unique lifestyle. Patrice is not a household name and Kaine Carter has taken advantage of that. If you watch Kaine Carter, just stop and go check out Patrice. He gives you realness 100% R.I.P. Patrice O’Neal

I’m torn. I like Kain Carter. I don’t like joke thievery. And yet, nothing Uproxx has ever done gives them the right to talk this much shit about the guy. Just the same brand of hipster nerd-snobbery that I can get from a billion other places.

As to why I’m here? The Smoking Section is the most talented group of writers for hip-hop on the web. So, that.

Well stealing jokes is the absolute worst thing a comefian can do, and may be a sign of a sociopath. I like how Uproxx pointing out his clear theft is talking shit, or “Hipster Snobbery”. If people think legit critcism is talking shit then we are Fuuuuucked as a society

1.) I’m talking about Uproxx in general, not just this article. There’s this air of hipster snobbery that I generally don’t have a problem with because it never quite strikes that much of a nerve with me.
2.) This isn’t criticism. This is dogpiling. The reporting isn’t even accurate, but I’ll leave that part alone.
3.) He totally stole jokes, so before anyone comments on it let’s not get ahead of ourselves and just assume I’m blinding myself to the facts.
4.) I wish Patrice had gotten nearly as much respect when he was alive that he does now that he’s dead. That dude was ALWAYS funny and STAYED killing it, but I swear I didn’t hear his name until he passed and suddenly he was a “genius”. FOH.

I need to make plain just how torn I am on this. Kain Carter has something like 2 years worth of material that was actually legit funny, legit creative, and near as I can tell he didn’t steal from anyone for any of it. In fact, the sad part of it is the bits he’s stolen? They were funny, but they didn’t have the same spark that attracted me in the first place.

The fact that people here are talking shit about kain for “stealing” patrice’s jokes is stupid. He admitted that 6 of his videos had quotes of patrice o’neal and he even said that he ha no idea who he was until a small amount of time before he passed . All of kains best and most famous videos has nothing to do with patrice and i bet a good amount of you didnt know who kain was until all of this dont even know exactly what he did you all are just joining this angry mob of idiots who never watched kains content. Why did it take everyone so long to speak up about this kain started youtube almost 5 years ago made dozens of videos and put countless hours in but no one spoke up which is stupid and i have an immense respect for both kain and patrice but why is everyone on patrice d*ck all of a sudden alot of you didnt know who he was until his death and thats why this is so big it has nothing to do with kain . Kain was someone who actually dedicated a video to him and showed his respect . In these five years of his success i bet if you looked in his videos comments before all this came up you would not see a single comment saying ” Kain is stealing from Patrice O’Neal” . I’d bet if he never posted those specific videos he would still be as successful on youtube as he is now . And if patrice were alive to see all this and look at kains content he would not feel his content was stolen . Everyone needs to back off and everyone knows Patrice will always be a legend of comedy and kain is a rising star in comedy . LETS JUST LEAVE IT AT THAT!!!

He stole jokes, point blank. He already had followers and stole jokes from a dead comic. that is fucked up. you dont do that.

Say you robbed a bank but only took $100, and you have $10,000 cash at home just because you didnt get rich doesnt mean you wont be arrested. You cant say “I dont need to steal, I have more money at home” It doesnt negate the fact that you stole.

Youtube is profitable, if he already has a bunch of followers and uses someone elses jokes whether people knew him or not, he passed them off as his own. That is stealing. if you gain from someone else’s work and make no effort to cite or quote you are plagiarizing.

And btw, how dare you speak for the Comic who was robbed after his death of his material? Who are you to say what Patrice would think? his family didnt take it lightly why would he if he were still alive?

Patrice deserves to be respected and known for what he accomplished while he was with us. You are just an idiot.